


Silence like a shell

by Nary



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Animal Death, Backstory, F/M, Female Character of Color, Languages, Mutilation, Oral Sex, Religions, Slavery, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-06
Updated: 2011-05-06
Packaged: 2017-10-19 01:56:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/195602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nary/pseuds/Nary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nokowe's people believed that evil spirits could not travel over water, and so they built their homes on stilts in the shallow lagoon of the island, believing they would be safe there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silence like a shell

Nokowe's people believed that evil spirits could not travel over water, and so they built their homes on stilts in the shallow lagoon of the island, believing they would be safe there. And safe they were, sheltered from storms and the fierce tribes of the inland forests, fed by the fish they speared from reed boats and the crabs they caught in their wicker traps, venturing onto shore to gather tart goldenberries and heavy, starchy kivu root. At daybreak, the elders chanted songs to the ancestors, and the children hung their heads over the edge of the village platforms to watch the great-grandmother sea-turtles circle in the clear water.

But even the wise elders could not have expected the pale-skinned men who came in the bellies of their huge, unwieldy wooden ships. They came seeking the great sea turtles who sheltered in the bay and came up onto the dunes to lay their eggs, to steal their shells and their meat. Nokowe's father and her brothers, along with the other warriors of the tribe, took their boats across to the dunes at the mouth of the lagoon to drive away the strangers who attacked their great-grandmothers. They did not know she followed them in her own small reed boat, keeping to the shelter of the vine-shaded shoreline, creeping up the east side of the dunes where the long-legged crab-catchers did not make their nests, so her presence would not be given away by their cries.

She hid in the saltgrass and watched as her family, human and turtle alike, was slaughtered, their spears and shells no match for the long gleaming knives of the sailors. She kept her fingers pressed tight to her mouth to keep from crying out, even as her youngest brother tried to crawl away and was cut down from behind. A sound must have escaped despite her efforts, for one of the pale men, with hair yellow like dry saltgrass, saw her there and, calling to his fellows in their strange, lilting tongue, began to walk towards her. She turned to run and found that one of the sailors had tossed a torch into her reed boat, cutting off her escape. Desperate, she drew her fishing spear - it was not meant for battle, but it could still kill, if aimed well. The straw-haired man laughed when she tried to jab him with it, and knocked it aside with his long metal knife, so that it splintered and broke. Then one of the other men must have struck her from behind, for she fell senseless to the sand and knew no more.

She woke in a dark, creaking cave that smelled of salt-water and tar, sweat and roasted meat. Her hands and feet were bound with rope that rasped and burned when she tried to struggle. Her wrap, the brown and green diamond-patterned one that had been her favourite, was gone. Her head ached, her lips were split and leaking blood, and there was a sticky soreness between her legs. Nokowe shouted, calling out for her mother, for her ancestors, but the only answer was a man's laughter. It was the yellow-haired man, who said things to her in a language she did not understand, and then untied her legs and rolled her onto her knees so that he could rape her again. With her face pressed against the splintery wood of the ship's belly, she thought of the great-grandmother turtles and took herself into her shell, away from the pain. She did not cry out again, not even when he left her alone in the dark.

Over the next weeks, she came to understand that the yellow-haired man was the leader of these sailors, for they all seemed to follow his orders, and none of them would try to lie with her except him, though the others would watch her as she moved about the ship, and sometimes touch her on the breasts or backside if they thought the captain was not looking. By gestures, and beatings when she did not respond quickly enough, she came to learn some of their words , so that she too could obey the captain - 'fetch,' 'wine,' 'food,' 'clean,' 'go away,' and 'fuck' were the first that she grasped, but soon others as well. She did not understand all that they said, but more than they might have guessed, since she still would not speak to them, keeping her silence about her like her shell. The men gave her bowls of turtle soup, and boiled turtle eggs, and laughed when she would not eat them. She grew thinner, subsisting on nothing more than the hard white biscuits that accompanied every meal, until the turtle meat was gone at last and they went back to the tough, salty meat they called 'pork'. Nokowe did not know what animal it had come from, but she knew it was not one of her ancestors, so she ate it hungrily, regaining some of her strength in case a moment came when she might escape, or find a weapon.

The ship came to a port, a loud, stinking place with more boats and people crammed together than Nokowe had known existed in the entire world. 'Volantis,' the sailors called it. They seemed happy, even eager, to see it. Nokowe, for her part, was locked into the captain's cabin, but found she was not too disappointed - when she dreamed of escape, it was into the wilderness, somewhere she might be able to make her way and hide, not into this terrifying land of loud noises and tall buildings and hundreds upon hundreds of strangers. She watched from the small round window as the men carried the great shells of the turtles off the ship, and sang under her breath what she could remember from the elders' songs to the ancestors, the last tribute she could pay to them.

The sailors brought many things back to the ship - barrels of water and wine, more of the terrible hard biscuits and the salted pork, canvas and rope to make repairs, heavy chests that she did not know what they contained. They also brought a group of men, bound with metal chains. 'Slaves,' Nokowe learned, was the word for them, and it meant that they had no freedom to do as they wished, but must work for whoever owned them. She wondered if she was a slave now too, if the captain owned her. No one had said so, and she was not chained as the men down in the hold were, but still she thought it might be true.

After three days and nights in the port, it was almost a relief to put out to sea once more. They sailed north, heading for someplace the men called 'Lys', which seemed to be their home. The winds carried them along the coast of a vast land that seemed to have no beginning and no end, though they also passed by smaller islands that reminded Nokowe more of her home. She considered jumping into the water and trying to swim to one of them, but she was not sure she could have made it. What good would her freedom do her in such a strange land anyway? It no longer seemed something worth risking her life over. The nights grew colder, and without her wrap she shivered. After a few such nights, she even crawled into the captain's hammock willingly, just for the warmth it would bring her, which seemed to please him even as it made her feel sick at heart.

The following morning, a heavy fog surrounded the ship, muffling sound and dulling sight. Nokowe stayed huddled under the captain's blanket, hoping that perhaps he would forget about her chores and allow her to stay there, where it was warm. She was fortunate - some shouts from the deck called him out, and so she was able to seize a few more precious moments of rest and comfort, such as it was. She must have dozed again, for she was awakened only when the screaming began in earnest. She jumped from the hammock, pulling the blanket around herself, and crept to the cabin door to listen. There were sounds of fighting, heavy footfalls on the deck, splashes of bodies falling into the water, men pleading for mercy or crying out in agony. She risked a glimpse out the small window, and saw the shape of another ship, black and low in the water, shrouded by fog. She retreated to the corner of the cabin and crouched there warily, not sure what was going on, but certain that nothing good would come of it.

Soon an eerie silence fell over the ship. In a way, that was worse than the screaming, because she could no longer even guess what was happening. She tensed as someone approached the cabin door, then kicked it open. A tall man stood silhouetted there, not one she had seen before. He strode into the small room, taking in everything he saw, including the frightened girl crouched in the corner. He said something to her, but she did not understand his words - they were different than the captain's had been. She shook her head, trying to show she didn't comprehend, and tried her tongue at the words she had been learning. "Please, no hurt." Her voice sounded strange to her ears after such long silence, but the stranger seemed to understand. He spoke to her next in the language of her captors.

"Slave?"

She nodded.

"Come here, girl," he said. His deep voice was slow, as if the words were also uncertain in his mouth. As she stepped out of the shadows, she could see the blood on his shirt, on his hands. His skin was white, even paler than the captain's had been, but his hair was as black as her own. One of his eyes was covered with a patch, but the one she could see was as blue as the sky. He reached out a hand as she drew near to him, and she trembled, but all he did was tug the blanket away and toss it to the cabin floor, leaving her naked. She could feel his steady gaze on her body, and it made her shiver more than the cold.

"What is your name?" he asked, and she told him. The other captain had never asked.

"Nokowe, I am your new master." She knew then that the yellow-haired captain must be dead. She did not regret his death in the slightest, but the uncertainty of what this new captain intended to do made her anxious. He looked like a man who would kill without a second thought, and she had no wish to incur his wrath.

"What do you do here?" he asked her, a smile on his lips that did nothing to reassure her.

"Clean, fetch wine, fetch food, fuck," she said, stumbling only slightly over the words she had heard so often but never uttered.

The one-eyed man nodded, as if he understood everything now. "Now you do those things for me."

Nokowe nodded. "Wine now?" she asked hopefully.

He reached out, quick like a spear striking, and pulled her close, leaving a blood-sticky handprint on her backside. "No," he said, and she could feel the sign of which task he wanted instead pressing against her belly, hard and demanding. He cupped her breast, his thumb rubbing steadily over her nipple, already stiff from the chill air. The hand on her backside squeezed more tightly, lifting her toward him until she was on her tiptoes. She felt an unexpected thrill of fear and excitement mingled. His fingers crept slyly around from behind, finding a growing wetness between her thighs. This close, his blue eye seemed like a pool of water, one she could sink into and drown.

"On your knees now, and suck my cock," he instructed her. She knew those words well, had learned to follow such orders instantly in order to avoid a beating. She sank smoothly to the wooden boards of the cabin floor, stroking his thighs as he unlaced the front of his breeches and drew out his manhood. It was longer than her last captain's had been, and taking it into her mouth was more of a struggle, but she did her best, hoping that if she pleased him well, he would not harm her. Her tongue circled him, teasing and lapping him, and his breathing, growing more harsh, told her that he was enjoying what she did. He gripped her by the hair, urging her faster, and she obeyed, responding to his will. She clutched his thighs tight and felt them tense and quiver when he grew close, redoubled her efforts to finish him off, and soon she heard him gasp as he forced her down onto him as far as she was able to go, farther even. She tasted his salt-spurt at the back of her throat, and tried not to gag. When he finally loosed his grip on her, she drew back onto her haunches, keeping her eyes lowered, not even daring to wipe her mouth with the back of her hand in case it angered him, and waited.

"Good," he managed to gasp once he'd regained his voice, and she felt a surge of relief. She had satisfied him, so he would let her live, perhaps even give her good food and warm clothes. Surely now he would want to keep her safe. He tied his breeches again, then drew her up to her feet and took her chin in his bloodstained hand, tipping it up so that she looked at him. "You have a skillful tongue," he said. "It seems a shame to lose it, but there are rules if you're going to come on board the Silence." Nokowe's brow furrowed, uncertain if she was understanding him correctly, when he drew her in for a kiss. She let him part her lips, closing her eyes, and felt the tip of his tongue softly tease her own. Then he drew back, holding her tight by the upper arm, and called out the door of the cabin.

"Churg!"

A huge, hulking man came to the doorway, blocking out most of the light. The new captain spoke to him quickly in his own language, which sounded rough and jagged to her ears. The giant did not speak in return, but nodded, holding up a pair of metal pincers. Then Nokowe knew that she had understood him correctly after all, and knew what he intended to do to her. She struggled to break free from his grip, but he was too strong. He looked down at her, seeming almost puzzled by her sudden panic. "You want to die instead?"

"No! No die!" Tears streamed down her face, making her cheeks glisten like polished wood.

"Then this is the price. I take your tongue, and I take your name, and you obey my commands. Or else you die like your last master." He explained it simply, as if to a recalcitrant child.

It was an impossible choice. Nokowe sought what strength she could gather from her ancestors, and nodded, even while withdrawing further into her mental shell. Her new master held her tight in his strong arms while the pincers did their terrible work, and stopped the bleeding with some foul green liquid he poured down her throat, which also served to dull the pain a little. Then he wrapped her in the blanket and carried her, almost tenderly, away from the captain's cabin and onto the Silence, the strange black ship that would be her new home.

As she watched the burning ship recede into the distance, until it was nothing more than a flickering orange glow in the fog, she wondered what the next days would bring. Despite her pain, her fear, she was still alive, and that was something. In fact, coming so near to death and escaping it gave her an unexpected sense of anticipation, a feeling that, although she could not know what the future would hold, she could endure it. This new master was strange, possibly even mad, but everything in her life had been mad since the day of her capture. How could this be worse?

**Author's Note:**

> I've been fascinated by the unnamed 'dusky woman', even though she only appears briefly in AFFC, so I took this opportunity to give her the name, backstory, culture, and personality the book doesn't provide, and to explain how she came to be owned by Euron Greyjoy.


End file.
